


Even When I'm Not Hungry I Starve

by waywardflower



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Codependency, Disordered Eating, Gen, Pre-Stanford, Probably Unhealthy Behavior and Thinking Overall, Weechesters, Winchesters Have Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-15 01:29:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7199891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waywardflower/pseuds/waywardflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Finish your food."</p>
<p>And other phrases that can lead to a lifetime of problems.</p>
<p>In which the Winchester brothers struggle with eating compulsions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Even When I'm Not Hungry I Starve

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: disordered eating, bad thought patterns regarding eating, fat-shaming (mentioned)
> 
> Please, please please pleaaaase don't take any of this to heart. If you have eating disorder-related struggles or anything, anything that hurts you somewhere people can't see, please, please, pleaaase on behalf of all the people who love you, and as someone who treasures your life, I beg that you get help. You are strong and you can do it.
> 
> On that note, on we go.

Growing up in the hunting life, food had never been a constant for the Winchester brothers.

Although Dad had tried to feed them somewhat consistently, meals came few and far in between while they were on hunts, and stomachs rumbled constantly, yearning food. They couldn't stop to eat often whilst actively hunting something; every moment wasted was another opportunity for lives to be lost. They always had research to do, weapons to prepare, supplies to gather. Usually, their personal nutritional needs were outweighed by the hunt.

Even before they had become involved in hunting, their time in the already stuffy, dingy motel rooms was wracked by pangs of hunger. They never seemed to stock up enough food for Dad's trips out, and so they learned to stretch small amounts of food for weeks via rationing, even spoiled food. Expiration dates meant little in the Winchester household.

They learned to fill the hollowness of their stomachs with stupid little games and stories and research and work and cleaning and found all sorts of things you could do other than eating. They managed, even when they were so weak from hunger they could barely stand. They more than managed, finding ways to laugh, smile, and have fun despite the gnawing ache.

But the hard thing about hunger, about distractions, is that everything is so much worse when you're hungry. When Sam got tired, he was tired _and_ hungry, and whining. When Dean got cranky because of Sam's whining, he was cranky _and_ hungry, and sometimes saying mean things. When Sam felt hurt because Dean said mean things, he was hurt _and_ hungry, and crying. When Dean felt guilty because Sammy was crying, he was guilty _and_ hungry, and trying to soothe his brother's tears. When Sam's sobs finally hiccuped to a stop and he shivered from the suddenly cold room, he was cold _and hungry_.

Needless to say, food was treasured between the two. And, if they happened to pick up some odd habits in the way they treasured this food, _well_. One could hardly blame them.

...

Sam had always known his family was screwed up. He'd watched the other kids at school laugh about parties they'd hosted recently, over old memories they'd shared, over new friends and teachers and normal things. (He didn't laugh over those things. What friends would he laugh with?) He'd watched them fight over stupid pranks, old gossip, and lost games. (There was never time to be angry on hunts. At home there was screaming, slapping, kicking, and shoving.) He'd watched other kids cry over missed homework assignments, dating struggles, petty scraped elbows and knees. (He'd cried once in fifth grade- part of the bone of Dean's left leg had been sticking out of the skin of his shin, freshly snapped by the latest creature of the night. His father had told him to _shut up_ and help drag his unconscious brother out, and Sam hadn't cried since.)

But mostly, he'd watched people eat.

He could tell something was different about the way they ate, they way they treated food. They ate slowly, picky about getting things on their fingers and mixing the two sides of the tray, and if something was off they complained, and threw it out. He was shocked, at first, at the sheer amount of waste they generated in one meal. Food burnt? Dump it. Juice too sweet? Down the drain. Not hungry? Chuck it in someone's bag, it'll be hilarious when they find it rotting, days later.

Normal kids didn't eat like they weren't sure when the next meal was coming. Normal kids didn't choke down unpleasant snacks. Normal kids weren't freakish about _waste_.

Sam envied them, envied the safety, the comfort they had, that there would always be another meal. That they'd always have snacks for later if they got a little peckish.

Because even though he's left Dean and Dad for his "normal apple pie life" (no, not normal- safe), Sam can never quite manage normal. He can leave his knife in the Impala, ditch the salt he used to carry around everywhere, heck, he can even forget the lore, but he's never able to to fit in, never able to drop his stupid obsession with wasted food.

And that just _bites_.

...

_It started when they were kids, starving in the backseats of the Impala, on the way to a diner._

_Dad had been gone for a long few days, and they had been just so sick of their motel room, so he promised them a trip out. It had been a quiet few days, a cold few days, a long few days. Dad had only meant to go for two, and although he did make a quick stop on the third night to let them know he'd be out for the rest of the week, he hadn't quite left enough to cover the expenses of both staying in the motel and eating. They'd been so relieved, nine-year-old Sam almost started crying._

_Once in the diner, Dad promised them anything they ordered. Sam ordered the biggest thing on the kid's menu, (which was apparently the chicken tenders) Dean a double burger from the adult section, as he was just old enough._

_It was only when their food arrived that their problem was made manifest. After having nothing for so long, their appetites had shriveled: Dean just managed to finish off his burger, though the fries remained; a third of Sam's chicken tenders and over half his side of fries lay untouched._

_"Boys, you were just telling me how hungry you were and now you're not even going to finish your meal?" Dad commented, eyebrow raised. They shrugged, heads ducked abashedly, and he rolled his eyes, heading for the restroom._

_Dean stared determinedly at his plate, and after a gulp of water, finished off his fries, albeit more slowly than he had devoured the burger._

_His brother, looking forlorn, shoved more fries into his mouth. 'You ordered it and now you finish it. Cmon, don't waste it. You never know when you'll be able to eat next.' Guilt clawed at his stomach, and, twisting his face in disgust, he crunched down on another tender._

_Dean watched concernedly as Sam forced another piece of his meal down. "Heya, little bro, ease up there. Don't force it down if you're not hungry, you'll make yourself sick and we'll hafta start all over again," Dean tells him, trying for a smile despite the worry._

_"But, Dean, I don't want to waste it and what if we don't get to- I mean-" His brother's eyes were wet, shoulders slumped._

_Tilting his head back while pressing his lips together, the thirteen-year-old decided that he couldn't let his Sammy hurt over this, and he was right, they weren't sure when they'd eat next. Now smiling, he turned toward his brother's plate. "Don't worry, Sammy. It's not going to be wasted. I'll eat it."_

_Dean gulped down some more water before he reached for his brother's fries, and by the time Dad returned from the diner restroom, both plates were clean. Ruffling his boys' hair, they shuffled into the Impala, bellies fuller than they'd been in weeks._

...

Dean swears it didn't happen on purpose. He never meant for it to get so out of hand, honestly, but at some point he'd just stopped caring.

Sam had left and Dean was still in the same place he'd always been, riding shotgun while his Dad chased down the nightmares hiding in closets and monsters under beds. While he was on a hunt, he had plenty of things to keep his mind occupied. Off the hunt there was too much time, too little distraction, so he drank and fooled around with specimens of the female gender. That became a regular fixture in his life, but John would stare disapprovingly at him as he slipped back into their motel room at unholy hours. He saved that habit for the small hunts alone, when his father couldn't breathe down his neck about being focused (and when he desperately needed distraction, because hunts alone gave him too much time to think). There was one thing he could do, and that was eat.

He snacked in between states, on the long drives to hunts. He munched down small treats while researching whatever thing-that-went-bump-in-the-night they had to track down this time. He ate before and after meals, becoming so full that he stopped having regular meals at all, simply resorting to grazing constantly through the day.

With all this constant snacking, it was hard to tell how much he was actually eating. So he never really noticed until all of a sudden his jeans didn't button up right, and with a dawning horror, he stepped on the scale in the dingy motel bathroom to find the awful truth. But he didn't change. He never could, not without the burn of shame that admitted there had once been something wrong.

Dean remained stuck in the same spot as always, stuck under the heel of his father's boot, stuck under the humiliating rolls of fat he'd started earning, stuck failing in every imaginable way.

...


End file.
